Miva Merchant Plugin

[rldev]

I need someone who can create a DA plugin for Miva Merchant installation. It should be fairly easy to do for a plugin designer. Please email me or pm me if you are interested.

[jmstacey]

Might ask the guys at installatron if they would consider adding it to their product. That would save the cost of developing an installation plugin for a single application where it would probably cost the same for something that installed a multidude of applications. :)

[l0rdphi1]

Hello,

Isn't Miva Merchant a pay-only application? I can't seem to find anything 'free' on their website.

With Installatron we are generally trying to stick to free scripts.

Phi1.

[rldev]

Hello Phil,
Yes Miva Merchant is not free software otherwise I would have made a request to Installatron. However, Miva Merchant is the most popular "pay-for" shopping cart in the world(love it or hate it). I have been offering it for years and this is why I need a install plugin for it.

[BigWil]

Rldev,

Are you having problems running MivaVM on your directadmin machines? Do you have any performance tuning hints?

BigWil

[rldev]

Not running it yet. Why are you having problems with Miva VM and Merchant? What type of problems?

[BigWil]

Yes. I am tinkering with the apache settings to find the best optimization for both MivaVM processes and static page processes. But in short the MivaVM and their corresponding Apache processes are bringing the DA machines to their knees under heavy load. My other non-DA machines run it all fine. So I have to figure out what the differences are.

More info on my problem can be found in this thread:
http://tinyurl.com/5owf2

BigWil

[rldev]

Do you have vm setup as one central binary with all of the sites accessing the same binary? Or do you have it setup so that each Miva site has it's own binary?

I know Miva is a resource hog, but that is crazy. I think I will try to set it up this week to see how it goes. Also have you asked DA support about this?

[BigWil]

Haven't gotten with DA Support on it yet as I bug them enough.

Yes I am running it as a centralized binary aka "sandboxed".

One trend I have noticed is that the stores all use OpenUI with 3rd party modules. But still the stores on the nonDA machines do too without these problems.

I am noticing that every Apache is sucking up 4.4MB of RAM whereas the other machines are only taking up 2.1MB or RAM. In comparing I see that it is probably all of the LoadModules in the DA system. On my nonDA machines all of those core items are all built in during compile with the exception of PHP and Frontpage. Since that is over a 50% reduction in RAM usage that may be the variable.

I guess I need to figure out how to customize the apache build a little. I have an empty machine so I think I will try it on that one first. Sounds like a good idea.

BigWil

[rldev]

Hey BigWill,
Sounds as if you narrowed it down. If I were you I would rebuild apache with minnimal modules. Then if testing is satisfactory, add another module, test, etc. You may find that a s specific module is causing you a problem. Keep me posted as I am obviously interested to see what the problem is.

[BigWil]

What would you consider the best install? Sandboxed or individual MivaVMs under every account?

I have had a couple of problems on the nonDA systems that I have always felt individual MivaVMs might remedy. But the setup is a bit of a pain and tough to automate.

BigWil

[rldev]

sandboxed is the only way to go with Miva. It just becomes too much of an effort to maintain otherwise. Also sandboxed is a much lower load on the server. It may be a little slower for your Miva clients but it is much faster for everyone else.

I never liked Miva to be honest. It is slow and expensive for the most part, but I have some users that have been using it a long time.

[BigWil]

On my nonDA machines my Apache build looks something like this. Of course this is for Apache2 but I think the same streamlined result could be found with Apache:

./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache --enable-so --enable-info --enable-proxy --enable-proxy_ftp --enable-proxy_http --enable-rewrite --enable-ssl=/usr/local/openssl --enable-vhost_alias --enable-speling --enable-headers

Followed by the added PHP and Frontpage modules:
libphp4.so mod_frontpage.so

Now I just have to try to achieve the same with the DA systems.

We haven't had a need for Mod_Perl at all so we haven't included it in order to keep the resources down. Maybe we will add it in on one of the machines at some point should the need arise. I was on the bleeding edge when Mod_Perl started to fly.... but it never seemed to me that it was ever going to really take flight.

BigWil

[BigWil]

Yah but we built our clientbase on us being one of the Top 5 Miva Hosts. So you can understand my concerns with the stores starting to act up on the DA systems. If we fall from that ranking we may never see it again. Scary. So I MUST figure out how to get it to run as it has for over 3 years now.

I agree that Sandboxed is the way to go. Those couple of troubles on the nonDA machines weren't critical and we were hoping that the DA systems and obvious upgrades would improve things enough that those little problems would disappear. But now I can't tell if the old problems are gone as the new problem is much bigger and blocking my view. :-)

I have been trying some trial and error tuning. What is your opinion or the opinions of the users here on these settings. Remember I am playing hit or miss. Seems pretty stable right now actually but it also doesn't look like the machine has the same load as it did for 2 hours yesterday.

Timeout 600
KeepAlive On
MaxKeepAliveRequests 100
KeepAliveTimeout 5
StartServers 2
MinSpareServers 2
MaxSpareServers 10
MaxClients 100
MaxRequestsPerChild 200

I have even thought about just going with keepalive off since the problems are all from dynamic sites.


BigWil

[rldev]

Timeout 60
MaxClients 200
StartServers 20
MinSpareServers 5
MaxSpareServers 100
KeepAlive On
MaxKeepAliveRequests 150
KeepAliveTimeout 15
MaxClients 200
MaxRequestsPerChild 10

These are my settings on a loaded non DA server with Sune one ASP. Runs fairly well.

I would try turning KeeepAlive off and make sure HostNameLookups are off as well. Also is it possible you have a lot of processes just hanging and not being killed off properly? Why do you have Timeout set so high(I gues it's not a big deal).

Wow top 5 Miva hosts. That's pretty good. I assume they give you deep discounts.

[BigWil]

"Deep discounts....." NDA sorry. But I always believe in following a hunch.

Sorry to get secretive but if you still would like to know send me a Private Message and I will explain the timeout issues.

I will try some of your settings and see how it performs over a 24 hour period. It would be nice if it worked and I could get some sleep. :-)


BigWil

[rldev]

I understand :)

[BigWil]

Curious question..... can the KeepAlive be set to Off in an .htaccess file and what are the ramifications?

BigWil

[rldev]

Hmm,
I never heard of doing this in a .htaccess file. I don't think this would help even if it is possible. I haven't really seen KeepAlive do much in Apache. Setting it to Off is probably best in your setup. It will definitely consume less memory which seems to be part of the problem.

[jlasman]

BigWil...

You can probably set up the httpd.conf file under DA the same way it's set up for your other servers (the ones that don't slow down). DA doesn't use apache itself.

rldev...

I'm not covered under the nondisclosure.

If you're a hosting company and are willing to spend money up front you get Miva for a very small fraction of their advertised price to the general public. A very small fraction.

Ask them, sign the NDA, and get the info yourself. You may just decide you can afford Miva.

Jeff

[BigWil]

rldev,

What isn't under the non-disclosure is that the Partnership Fee is $495 per year. On their public pages.

Jeff,

The problem with just using the configuration is that we would lose the use of all those core components. Our previous build had them all built right in. I don't understand how but this reduced the memory requirement considerably. Sounds backwards doesn't it? Could the DA build have these items built in AND be loading them? Quite a leap but if at all possible it would explain the high overhead.

Anyways I think what I need to do is figure out how to modify the DA customapache configuration and rebuild with the minimal resource requirement. But I also see that it starts up with a bunch of runtime options... $OPTIONS. Where can I modify those options?

BigWil

[rldev]

Thanks Guys,
I am aware of the costs of Miva products as a hosting company. I was suggesting that a top 5 Miva host has enough clout to negotiate pricing rather then be dictated pricing.

I've been buying Miva licenses since Merchant 2.0 . I'm aware it is much cheaper to buy bundles of licenses, but they are still fairly expensive. Frankly I don't really like the product all that much, I just have 60 or so clients that use it.

[BigWil]

I WISH! No that would be Top 5 in customer satisfaction, support and performance. Not quantity of licenses. Miva doesn't care how well we support their product or how great their licensees say our services are. As long as we pay our Partner Fee and buy licenses Miva is happy. Unfortunately it is strickly a monetary relationship. And since we are quality and not quantity .... no we have no negotiating action except for the fact that myself and my sales rep there are both Irish. So the best deals are negotiated at the pub. :-)

FYI: Our Top 5 Miva Host ranking comes from the Miva licensees and community.

BigWil

[rldev]

Oh I see. Nothing wrong with a little Jameson, Guiness and some Darts at the pub!

[jlasman]

BigWil,

You write "at the pub".

Are you in the San Diego area then?

If so I'd be happy to meet you at the pub some afternoon.

:)

Jeff

[BigWil]

That was actually a couple of months ago. We recently relocated farther up North to get away from the highcosts and congestion of Southern California. But I am still down there 1-2 times a month so maybe on my next visit I will look you up and we can have a drink or ten.

;)

BigWil

[jlasman]

Depending on how you come down, you may drive right past me.

I'm in Riverside, less than a mile from the University Ave exit of the 215 South.

While I'd prefer inland, I can meet anywhere in So. Cal.

Jeff